A Google Vice President stated that the AI revolution is inevitable, noting that "The younger generation is really feeling like it’s a native part of how they work."

“I think it’s really fascinating,” Kim told Coins2Day, “because unlike older generations, where AI might be more of a utility in their life,” the survey shows “the younger generation is really feeling like it’s a native part of how they work.”

Kim, a parent of two, commented that the AI usage shown in the survey resembles how young children interact with iPads. “You didn’t have to teach a kid how to scroll, right?” She referenced the poll, which was commissioned by Google and carried out by The Harris Poll, surveying over 1,000 professionals in the United States, along with her discussions with major corporations and a global network of new businesses. She stated there's a distinct difference between generations. “A lot of the Gen Zers are really using it in ways that are very native.”

This point is persuasive, as in the past, younger individuals have frequently guided the direction of workplace tools, introducing items they were familiar with from their education or private use into their companies. “Especially with AI, I’ve been also very curious to see how younger workers are using AI, because that kind of tells you where the future is going,” Kim stated.

Conversely, regarding the question of older, potentially more susceptible workers facing disruption from AI, Kim concurred that this factor was indeed considered. “There’s going to be cohorts of people where they just pick it up and it just feels natural. And then there’s people who are very … Change is hard sometimes.”

Kim cited the instance when Google Docs was initially introduced, and office employees no longer needed to await a document's return via email for modifications, as individuals could collaborate on it simultaneously.

“You can imagine how not having a separate literal version of a document might be a little bit unsettling to people who are very, very used to years and years of being able to lay it out,” she said. For the younger generation, she added, “it seems almost unfathomable that you’d have to wait for someone to be able to give you feedback or take a look at something very, very quickly.”

Quality means personalization

While the previous year was marked by experimentation for many large enterprises, Gen Z is “already there,” figuring out how to become more productive and effective on their own. She offered the example of “vibe coding,” or using AI tools to code without maybe having much coding training or expertise.

“It’s much more about what is the outcome that I want to create? And what is it that I want to create?” Kim said. “And using AI to partner and collaborate with you to build those things.”

This was the major theme that jumped out to Kim, as she highlighted 90% of rising leaders want “personalization” with their AI. Younger workers are already using AI to personalize their workflows, she said, and the AI tools (and companies) that will thrive will feed into that personalization. Young leaders are “beyond the point of generic output,” Kim said, and 92% of respondents said it’s essential for AI to deliver truly personalized assistance. For AI to be truly useful, the “quality bar” must be higher than mere novelty, requiring output that conveys the user’s specific voice, tone, and writing style. This demand for authenticity comes despite—or perhaps because of—a generation that maintains a high level of skepticism, quickly identifying when content, such as a photo or an article, might be AI-generated.

Kim said her own teenage kids are “very skeptical” when they see photos on social media. “They’re like, ‘Was that an AI image?'” She said her kids—and she assumes the younger generations—have “that radar” where it’s very important for things to feel “authentic and real.” The best AI tools in the future, according to Kim, will be the ones that seamlessly reflect their users.

AI assists employees in concentrating on concepts by managing “all the time-consuming stuff” such as “spell-checky, grammar-checky” tasks. This enablement signifies that conventional hindrances, for instance, insufficient programming expertise or visual design proficiency, are no longer significant impediments to transforming a concept into a tangible outcome. A particular executive remarked that subsequent to implementing Gemini with their workgroups, they commenced generating the “highest quality work he’s seen.”

Google Workspace, which serves over 3 billion users across more than 11 million paid organizations globally, aims to meet users in this new reality. The strategic goal is to ensure AI does not feel like a “bolt-on to your life,” Kim said, but rather something that is seamlessly available within everyday tools like Gmail and Google Docs. This native integration has already yielded powerful results for a wide spectrum of users, including non-native English speakers who now use AI in Gmail to write professional emails quickly, boosting their communication confidence.

Kim spoke about the honor and the burden of being the global representative for Google Workspace. She mentioned, for example, that she frequently engages with major corporations on the Coins2Day 500 list that utilize Workspace, as well as smaller enterprises in distant regions such as Brazil and India.

“Just hearing from users around the world, it’s been amazing,” she said, highlighting how much AI has helped people who are not native English speakers write professional emails in English. “It saves time, but it also makes them confident about communication.”

Furthermore, Kim mentioned that other clients have informed her that AI has reduced the duration required for Their American counterparts to merely examine content prior to its online publication. Given that she represents digital solutions impacting a significant portion of the globe, the magnitude of Kim's undertaking is substantial.

When asked about the massive change that AI represents, and whether she sees part of her role as change management for 3 billion people, Kim paused, and nodded. “Sometimes, sometimes? Because I think that the thing is when you have that wide of a spectrum of users, you have all ages, different countries … it’s a privilege, and it’s a big challenge, to serve all those audiences, but it’s fun.”